When
I was 6 years old my parents decided to immagrate to Australia,
this was in 1962. We lived in South Australia in quite a few
towns Adelaide, Cedunna, Whyalla and Wudinna.
While were at Wudinna I made friends with a local boy named
Lothar Kowalewski we were the same age and hit it off really
well.
Lothar
lived on a farm a few miles out of Wudinna and most days after
school were rode our bikes to the farm, feeding the pigs,
goats and chickens. I had some great times there, I even remember
being chased by a sow after she saw me admiring her new litter,
I ran so fast and hurdled a fence that I would have won a
Gold Medal. . We left Wudinna for Whyalla, my parents
never seemed to settle in Australia and by 1968 we were leaving
for Zambia spending two awful years there and then back to
England.
During
this time I kept in touch by letter but over the years we
lost touch.
I'd
never forgotten these times and was planning a trip to Australia
with family in Feb 1998. I was now working for a large
Hospital in Sheffield as part of the IT Team and now had access
to the Internet. So I started searching initially
starting with all the usual search engines bigfoot,
four11 and Australian
whitepages.
Without much success, I wasn't sure how Lothar last name was
spelt. So I thought just do a search on the town, Wudinna
and see what comes up. A few things came up some tourist
stuff and a page with the South Australian Library service.
My plan was to try and contact my old school and see if they
could help. The page had an email link, so I emailed
the guy asking him if he could help with the school address
and I would write to them. I then finished my lunch
and went back to doing what I was paid for.
Well,
the next day what a surprise and shock. I logged on
and started to read my email. The guy in Australia had
replied and gave me the address of the school but also said
he knew the librarian at Wudinna and said she was married
to a farmer and might know the family. He forwarded
on my email and her reply was right after his. My heart
was beginning to beat really fast now. I opened
the email up and phew!. See knew the family and contacted
Lothar by phone and asked if she could forward on his address,
he of course said yes and there it was. I couldn't believe
it after not hearing from Lothar in nearly 30 years here was
his address and telephone number. He now lived in Leigh
Creek South Australia.
What
to do now write or phone ? I decided to phone. It was
Sunday morning about 9 am I worked out it should be about
8pm in Oz. What to say after 30 years. I stood
by the phone for a few minutes a eventually plucked up the
courage. Lothar answered the phone and was amazed that
I could find him after all this time. We spoke for
about 20 minutes, sod the phone bill, and we had so much to
say. I then said I would write and send some pictures,
I did and Lothar did the same. We've since kept in
touch but sadly when I visited Australia we couldn't get across
to South Australia. We plan to go back and this time
we'll meet up.
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Lothar
and his family1995
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Now
in 2002 Josie, Lothar's daugther is on the net and we regularly
send emails and pictures and have even chatted with MS Messenger.
